During my 2002 trip to Australia and New Zealand, my free Geocities account flaked out
before allowing very many people to view the photos I'd posted. I decided to bite the bullet
and establish a paid account while I was in Australia. I foolishly thought I could keep my old
Geocities URL but the site unexpectedly insisted during registration that I come up with a
domain name.
I didn't want my name in the URL but anything else I thought of was taken: my favorite color,
my astrological sign, plays on my geographic area. Then, suddenly, I remembered an incident
from long ago, described below by perpetrator Ross Pavlac.
I was pretty sure no one else would be using "smofbabe" as a domain name and I was right.At one point I walked into the Boston in 1998 room party, and noticed
that everyone in the room had convention-running credentials -- there
had to be at least 150 years of con-running experience present. In
particular, laying on the bed were Jill Eastlake, Janice Gelb, Becky
Thomson, Judy Bemis, and Marcia McCoy. They were the only women in the
room, and were chatting among themselves (about running special events
at cons, as I recall). There were several men in the room, all standing
around the bed, like acolytes. I paused for a moment, looking at this
tableau. "Why, it's the Hot Smof Babes of Fandom," I thought to myself.There was only one course of action. I went to the dealers' room the next
morning and had five buttons made up (black lettering on hot pink) that
read: HOT SMOF BABES OF FANDOM. As the day passed, I awarded one to
each of the five women who had been on the bed at the Boston party.
